Why are Monarch butterflies so special? We recently asked five questions of Martine Wong, Fresh Pond Reservation (FPR) Outreach & Volunteer Coordinator, and her Cambridge Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program (MSYEP) intern, Shewit. On August 6th and 7th, amidst some fanfare—kids and puppets—Martine, Shewit and other staff and volunteers released most of the butterflies that they had helped raise,Continue reading “Five Questions for Cambridge’s Monarch Nannies”
Tag Archives: environment
A Single Species: An End-of-January Investigation
There is sometimes too much, or too little, simplification that goes on when “environmental education” takes hold. Starting with a single species, as Fresh Pond Reservation staff in Cambridge, Mass., will do on January 31st with “The Secret Life of White Oaks,” can make a path for kids, families, anyone, to start small and grow curious from there.Continue reading “A Single Species: An End-of-January Investigation”
Snowfall in the City
When children wake up with the outdoor world coated with even an inch or two of snow, the transformation of their world isn’t partial, as it is for the jaded among the rest of us, who’ve seen hundreds of snowfalls come and go. We have turned into the shovelers, the drivers, the schleppers, the planning-ahead experts.Continue reading “Snowfall in the City”
Dragonflies and Damselflies and Algae, Oh My!
Here in the Greater Boston area we’ve just had a discharge of the combined sewer overflow system due to recent heavy rains. This affects the entire Mystic River watershed of which the Alewife Brook watershed is a part. The announcement of the overflow comes at a time when I need a reminder of the reasons why IContinue reading “Dragonflies and Damselflies and Algae, Oh My!”
O! Ye Briny Deep: Fracking vs. Nurse Carver
Donna Carver, an Ohio nurse and environmental activist, has taken a stand against the use of “brine” on the grounds of her local county fair. What is brine? It’s a euphemism for oilfield waste. She’s petitioned the body governing the fairgrounds to cease using it. According to Carver, the study claiming the product is safeContinue reading “O! Ye Briny Deep: Fracking vs. Nurse Carver”
Off Trail in the Peppermint Forest
It’s time for me to leave the sidelines. It’s time for slow this-and-that. Slow Food. Slow Families. Slow Medicine, even. Unplug. Be in the moment. Pay attention. But to what? The “movement” to simplify has, in a way, come full circle. I like those nice two-word concepts, above. Actually, two-word concepts is about all I canContinue reading “Off Trail in the Peppermint Forest”
The Host-Parasite Thing, with Many Digressions
Ideas and facts aren’t bad just because we acquire them via social media. As a parent and self-teaching nature club guide* I’ll take what I can get from the Internet. Here’s an example. So am I a host or a parasite in the digital food chain? *I’ve been calling myself a “leader” of the clubContinue reading “The Host-Parasite Thing, with Many Digressions”
A Toolkit for Community Planning with Regard to Open Space
A Toolkit for Community Planning with Regard to Open Space Caveat: this array of links from Mass Audubon may not be fully up to date. However, I offer it here for those of us relative newbies interested in understanding and working on open space issues.
Pick Up Sticks: How Nature Education Gets Its Mojo Back
Some new voices have come in to play. That’s a bad pun but a good thing. They’re from people who are in the outdoors every day with kids. They have a lot to offer parents or afterschool workers like me. Some of us have read Richard Louv and have concluded that our own kids need toContinue reading “Pick Up Sticks: How Nature Education Gets Its Mojo Back”
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